1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to ultrasound diagnostic apparatuses, and more particularly to an ultrasound diagnostic apparatus and a method of displaying ultrasound images.
2. Background Art
An ultrasound diagnostic apparatus has become an important and popular diagnostic tool due to its non-invasive and non-destructive nature. Modern high-performance ultrasound imaging diagnostic devices and techniques are commonly used to produce two- or three-dimensional images of internal features of patients. The ultrasound diagnostic apparatus may provide the ultrasound images in various image display modes. The image display modes may include a real-time display mode, a freeze mode and a cine replay mode.
When in the real-time display mode, the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus may transmit and receive ultrasound signals to obtain ultrasound image data. The ultrasound diagnostic apparatus may display an ultrasound image of a target object in real time based on the ultrasound image data. In such a case, while displaying the ultrasound image, the ultrasound image data, which include a plurality of image frames, may be also stored in a storage such as a cine memory. When the image frames are stored, indices may be assigned thereto. The indices may be assigned according to the acquisition time of the image frames.
If the freeze mode is set, then the conventional ultrasound diagnostic apparatus may stop transmitting the ultrasound signals to the target object and provide the indices of the image frames stored in the storage. If a user selects one of the indices by using an input device such as a mouse, a keyboard or a track ball, then an image frame corresponding to the selected index may be read out from the storage and then displayed on a display unit. In such a case, since the user has to select the indices one by one to display a desirable image frame, the user may feel inconvenient when searching for the desirable image frame.
If the cine replay mode is set in the conventional ultrasound diagnostic apparatus, then the image frames stored in the storage may be read out in the order (or in the inverse order) of the acquisition times. A cine image may be replayed based on the read-out image frames. Also, the ultrasound diagnostic apparatus may provide indices on a screen of the display unit in the cine replay mode. The user may select an index corresponding to a start image frame of the cine image to be replayed and an index corresponding to an end image frame of the cine image to be replayed. The conventional ultrasound diagnostic apparatus merely sets a replay period by selecting indices corresponding to the start image frame and the end image frame of the cine image. Thus, the cine image for only one replay period may be displayed.